In San Bernardino, Concealed Carry Would Have Made A Difference

Amy Wetzel, widow of Michael Wetzel, one of the victims of the San Bernardino Islamic terror attack on a Christmas Party, is convinced that lives would have been saved if someone in the room had been able to confront the two ISIS-inspired terrorists with a weapon of their own.

San Bernardino County is now booking appointments for the applications process all the way out into the Summer of 2016. While some people may be alarmed that so many California citizens will suddenly be armed with guns, San Bernardino police chief Jarrod Burguan believes there’s nothing to be concerned about.

“It doesn’t concern me that law-abiding, mentally sound people are getting concealed weapons permits,” said Burguan, according to The Sun. “I will say from having a gun, pretty much my whole adult life, there is a lot of responsibility that comes with it.”

Amy Wetzel is the widow of San Bernardino shooting victim Michael Wetzel and she is also applying for a concealed carry weapons permit. During a recent interview, she speculated that the outcome of the San Bernardino terrorist attack could have been very different if someone had been carrying a concealed gun.

“What if someone in that room (at the Inland Regional Center) had had a permit to carry (a concealed weapon),” she said.

In all likelihood, a well-trained concealed carrier would have made things quite sporty for the terrorists amid the confusion in San Bernardino, and may have wounded or killed both of them, as a single older police officer did in Garland, Texas thwarting a similar terrorist attack.

Interest in concealed carry is spiking around the nation, as recent stories in North Carolina and Virginia and other states shows. It seems that the only places where concealed carry is not seeing record growth are those areas where citizens have allowed their rights to be stripped from them and the government now demands “good reason” for citizens to obtain a permit to bear arms in their own defense.

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I’d suggest that the continued and growing interest of American society in armed self-defense is going to force the following evolution nationwide if the trend continues:

“May Issue” localities which once required citizens to show a threat to justify the issuance of concealed carry permits will be forced by voters to adopt “Shall Issue” systems, where permit issuance is assumed unless there is a record of mental health, drug abuse or criminal behavior that makes it dangerous for that individual to have a concealed weapon.

“Shall Issue” concealed carry states will expand both concealed and open carry rights as well.

Eventually, as long as “shall issue” concealed carry and open carry occurs these states without any significant issues, there is a likely progression to “constitutional carry,” where the open or concealed carry of a handgun no longer requires permitting.

Once constitutional carry states achieve a political critical mass of some sort (say, in the 35-45 state range), there may be a call for national constitutional carry reciprocity as either a federal law, or better yet, a simple agreement among the states where permits are no longer needed as long as the weapon holder had valid government issued ID and meets gun ownership/possession requirements.

Gun control is a dying effort in the United States, increasingly confined to older, wealthier progressive white females in gentrified urban areas.

It is being opposed by a gun culture that is becoming incredibly diverse, where the fastest growing demographics are younger, female, urban, and “people of color.”

We are winning the battle for hearts and minds, forcing gun control supporters to outrageous lies (such as those told last week by President Obama in national addresses) in a doomed rear-guard action.

Liberty is being restored to the people, whether anti-gun progressive Democrats like it, or not

Bob Owens is the Editor of BearingArms.com.
Bob is a graduate of roughly 400 hours of professional firearms training classes, including square range and force-on force work with handguns and carbines. He is a past volunteer instructor with Project Appleseed. He most recently received his Vehicle Close Quarters Combat Instructor certification from Centrifuge Training, and is the author of the short e-book, So You Want to Own a Gun.
He can be found on Twitter at bob_owens.
https://bearingarms.com/author/bobowens-bearingarms/